"Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza Artwork

Guns for Hire

The Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict. The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalisation of private warfare tells us about the world as we currently find it, but also about the future of the international system and about what war could look like in the coming decades. Written and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

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Guns for Hire

"Yes, really": American PMCs (back) in Gaza

June 04, 2025 • Season 2 • Episode 11

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In this emergency episode, Alia is joined by the international human rights lawyer and former senior UN official, Craig Mokhiber. They discuss a new, controversial mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza – with American PMCs at the core of the system. Craig offers his assessment of why the Israeli-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was established, its rejection by the UN and the international aid community for weaponising hunger, as well as the international laws it is breaching. He describes the cruelties and dangers inhering in this new aid system and outlines how individuals, including PMC employees, may be held legally accountable for their participation in the GHF and their association with the IDF’s wider war crimes.

"This is not an aid operation. It is an extension of the unlawful Israeli occupation and its plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza."

The Guns for Hire podcast is written, produced and hosted by Dr Alia Brahimi.

Get in touch at: gunsforhirepodcast@gmail.com.

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Alia Brahimi

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